June 2018 Feminism and Revolution: Looking Back, Looking Ahead Julie Matthaei Since the stirring of “second wave” feminism a half century ago, the movement has become progressively more inclusive and systemic. Early on, Marxist-feminists argued that true women’s liberation required transcending both patriarchy and capitalism, and thus a politics at once feminist and anti-classist was essential. Soon, they, too, were challenged to broaden their theory and practice to acknowledge oppressions arising from race, nationality, sexual orientation, and other sources of identity and social location. Addressing this challenge gave birth to a solidarity politics within feminism rooted in intersectionality and manifest both within the movement and in its relationship with other movements. Importantly, this new politics offers ways for individuals to engage in radical social change now by creating new practices and institutions in the solidarity economy. An implacable and inclusive feminism remains essential for building the larger solidarity politics and economics we need for a Great Transition that eliminates oppression of all kinds. A GTI Essay Introduction Who will lead the fight for a better world? The Great Transition Initiative has, for more than a decade, posited the emergence of a “global citizens movement” capable of shifting the world toward a just and sustainable future. How that movement will coalesce remains to be seen, but the evolution of feminism over the past fifty years offers valuable lessons. As a US Marxist-feminist, anti-racist, ecological economist, I have been part of this evolution, in both theory and practice. In the early 1970s, as an integral part of “second wave” feminism, we Marxist-feminists insisted on recognizing that patriarchy and capitalism were intertwined oppressive systems: liberation could not be achieved without overcoming both. A simple identity politics of womanhood or a class-specific Marxist politics of a working-class revolution would not suffice. The evolution of Soon, though, we and other feminists were challenged by the need to broaden our feminism offers valuable lens further. The insight that identities of gender, class, race, sexuality, nationality, etc., lessons for a global are mutually determining gave rise to a new concept: intersectionality. Some feared citizens movement. that acknowledging interconnecting identities and forms of oppression would prove divisive, but what began as splintering gave birth to a new form of politics: solidarity politics. Solidarity politics can unite people across movements and within movements, and offers the foundational framework for any successful global citizens movement. Indeed, this dynamic already is engaging various social movements on the ground and inspiring the development of new, solidarity economy practices and institutions. Feminism Meets Marxism In the early 1970s, second-wave feminism (so-named in contrast to the first wave, which focused on gaining the right to vote) exploded in the United States and beyond. Women met in consciousness-raising groups and formed grassroots organizations engaged in a wide spectrum of feminist struggles from clerical organizing to media reform. Mainstream feminist organizations focused on guaranteeing reproductive rights and gaining equal rights and opportunities with men in the paid labor force. However, the second-wave feminist movement also included an active left wing of Marxist/socialist-feminists who built on and critiqued Marxist theory of capitalism and revolution. They noted that the Marxist framework analyzed women’s oppression as workers by capitalists, but ignored the issue of women’s oppression by men, both in the household and in the workplace. Labor unions—ideally, the revolutionary expression of a working-class movement—had a checkered past regarding their position on women’s equality, having supported women’s exclusion from higher-paid jobs and relegation to domesticity in the nineteenth century. Traditional Marxists, like traditional men, we pointed out, expected feminists—like traditional wives—to lose their identity when they connected to Marxism.1 1 |Feminism and Revolution | A GTI Essay Marxist-feminists also critically examined Marxist theory of revolution. Marxist theory viewed workers as the agents of revolutionary social change, class struggle the motor, and a planned, socialist economy the goal. So strong was this vision of change that even after the lamentable lack of democracy in the Soviet Union became obvious, early Marxist- and socialist-feminists were told to postpone organizing with women against our oppression until after the class-based, worker-led revolution had been won. Feminist organizing, according to male leftists, would divide the working class, and thereby perpetuate capitalism. However, we Marxist-feminists were not about to wait until after the revolution, nor were we willing to give up our connection to Marxism or the vision of a better, socialist future. We felt the sea change in this feminist upsurge and were determined to play an active part, as socialists. We saw two truths: women’s liberation could Women’s liberation not be achieved within the capitalist system, but women could not wait until after could not be achieved the socialist revolution to fight for our liberation. Homemakers’ entrance into the paid labor force brought them from gender oppression in traditional marriage into within the capitalist class and gender oppression by bosses. Even if structures of gender inequality and system, but women domination were somehow eliminated by the feminist movement, women would could not wait until continue to be oppressed as workers. after the revolution. At the same time, Marxist-feminists realized that women’s oppression would not be eliminated by socialist revolution, at least not as it had been practiced thus far. We based this conclusion on the experiences of women in socialist countries such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Our own experience showed us that leftist men in the US were sexist as well. As socialist-feminists, we committed ourselves to feminist and anti-classist organizing, and to moving towards a broader vision of a post-capitalist, socialist-feminist system. We participated actively in the creation of socialist-feminist women’s unions in Berkeley, Chicago, and New Haven, among others, in which academics and activists came together to advocate systematic feminist, anti-classist transformation of capitalism.2 We adapted Marxist theory so that it could be better used to analyze and elucidate the economic position of women. In the “domestic labor debate,” we examined whether housework constituted productive labor and produced surplus value for capitalists (with no clear resolution of the debate). Some used Marx’s materialist analysis—which specifies a “mode of production and reproduction”—to analyze women’s unpaid work of homemaking and child-rearing as part of the material base of capitalism, and hence as core to revolutionary organizing. These discussions helped inspire a movement demanding “wages for housework.” Though this debate did not generate a consensus around a single theoretical framework, it lifted up and validated women’s unpaid caring work as a central, and undervalued, aspect of economic and social life.3 2 |Feminism and Revolution | A GTI Essay Marxist-feminists concluded that systemic class and gender oppression undergird the current economy. Sometimes, the two work in concert; at other times, as when capitalist development drew married women into the paid labor force, they undermine one another.4 Both needed to be analyzed and overcome by a two- pronged, Marxist and feminist, movement. We argued for a dual struggle against capitalism and patriarchy, two intertwined economic systems, by organizing women against male domination, and workers against class domination. This type of analysis—recognizing both patriarchy and capitalism as coexisting, intertwined, and oppressive systems—came to be known as “dual systems theory.” In adopting dual systems theory, Marxist-feminists accepted and extended Marx’s basic analysis of revolution or system change. We subscribed to Marx’s view of economic transformation as a revolutionary process, fueled by struggle by members of the oppressed group. Whereas radical feminists had substituted women for workers as the revolutionary agent, Marxist-feminists accepted class struggle as a key aspect of revolution, and added women to workers as a second oppressed group. We conceptualized two systems of oppression—capitalism and patriarchy—each Feminists soon faced requiring radical transformation for women to be liberated. a clear challenge from anti-racist women of color. Intersectionality and the Collapse of an Identity Politics of Revolution While dual systems theory appeared to “dissolve the hyphen” between Marxism and feminism, Marxist-feminists (and all feminists) soon faced a clear challenge from anti- racist women of color. Feminists of color harshly critiqued white feminists’ notions of “sisterhood” or woman-based identity politics. They pointed to racism within the feminist movement, especially white women’s monopolization of leadership positions and the defining of “women’s issues” from the point of view of white women.5 To complicate things further, lesbian feminists were also protesting homophobia in the feminist movement. Both groups called on white and heterosexual feminists to explicitly declare themselves to be against racism and homophobia and to incorporate this stance